When there’s a noticeable gap of time in between major GPU launches, one thing’s bound to happen: we’re going to see models get released that slot into gaps we didn’t think existed. That’s the case of both AMD’s Radeon HD 7790 and NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST, which retail for the same price. Let’s check them out.

Game Tests: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Total War: SHOGUN 2

Of all the games we test with in our current suite, there is no other that’s likely to suck hundreds of hours out of your life than Skyrim. An expansive world, in-depth game mechanics, and the feeling that there’s always something to do… it’s no wonder the game has hit the right mark with so many people. While not the most graphically-intensive game, we like to test with it due to its popularity and the fact that it scales well in performance.

Manual Run-through: From the entry point in Markarth, our path leads us around the entire city, ultimately bringing us back to where we started.

NVIDIA continues to trounce here, with nearly a 20 FPS gain at both resolutions. Being a game that doesn’t exactly push graphics hardware as hard as some of the other games in our suite, this is pretty surprising.

Total War: SHOGUN 2

Strategy games are well-known for pushing the limits of any system, and few others do this as well as Total War: SHOGUN 2. It fully supports DX11, has huge battlefields to overlook with hundreds or thousands of units, and a ton of graphics options to adjust. It’s quite simply a beast of a game.

Manual Run-through: While we normally dislike timedemos, because strategy games such as this are very difficult to benchmark reliably, we’ve opted to use the built-in benchmark instead.

The relentless GTX 650 Ti BOOST strikes again. With this game in particular, I have no doubts that the 1GB framebuffer is the issue for the AMD card, as it’s incredibly intense. Will our synthetic benchmarks back up our findings? Let’s find out.